[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
[May 2, 1997]
[Pages 531-533]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Dedication of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial
May 2, 1997

    Thank you very much, Senator Inouye; Senator Hatfield; Your 
Highness; my longtime friend David Roosevelt and the members of the 
Roosevelt family; Mr. Vice President; to all those who have worked to 
make this day a reality. Let me begin by saying to Senator Inouye and 
Senator Hatfield, the United States proudly accepts the Franklin Delano 
Roosevelt Memorial.
    Fittingly, this is the first occasion of its kind in more than 50 
years. The last time the American people gathered near here was in 1943 
when President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the memorial to Thomas 
Jefferson. Today we honor the greatest President of this great American 
Century.
    As has been said, FDR actually wanted no memorial. For years, none 
seemed necessary, for two reasons. First, the America he built was a 
memorial all around us. From the Golden Gate Bridge to the Grand Coulee 
Dam, from Social Security to honest financial markets, from an America 
that has remained the world's indispensable nation to our shared 
conviction that all Americans must make our journey together, Roosevelt 
was all around us. Second, though many of us never lived under his 
leadership, many who did are still around, and we have all heard about 
him from our parents or grandparents--some of us, as we pass by WPA or 
CCC projects along country roads, some of us as we looked at the old 
radios that our parents and grandparents kept and heard stories about 
the fireside chats and how the people felt.
    Today he is still very real to millions upon millions of Americans, 
inspiring us, urging us on. But the world turns, and memories fade. And 
now, more than a half-century after he left us, it is right that we go a 
little beyond his stated wishes and dedicate this memorial as a tribute 
to Franklin Roosevelt, to Eleanor, and to the remarkable triumphs of 
their generation.
    President Roosevelt said--[applause]--thank you. President Roosevelt 
said, ``We have faith that future generations will know that here, in 
the middle of the 20th century, there came a time when men of good will 
found a way to unite and produce and fight to destroy the forces of 
ignorance and intolerance and slavery and war.'' This memorial will be 
the embodiment of FDR's faith, for it will ensure that all future 
generations will know. It will ensure that they will all see the ``happy 
warrior'' keeping America's rendezvous with destiny.
    As we stand at the dawn of a bright new century, this memorial will 
encourage us, reminding us that whenever America acts with certainty of 
purpose and FDR's famous flexibility of mind, we have always been more 
than equal to whatever challenges we face.
    Winston Churchill said that President Roosevelt's life was one of 
the commanding events in human history. He came from privilege, but he 
understood the aspirations of farmers and factory workers and forgotten 
Americans. He electrified the farms and hollows, but even more 
important, he electrified the Nation, instilling confidence with every 
tilt of his head and boom of his laugh. His was an open, American spirit 
with a fine sense for the possible and a keen appreciation of the art of 
leadership. He was a master politician and a magnificent Commander in 
Chief.
    And his partner was also magnificent. Eleanor Roosevelt was his eyes 
and his ears, going places he could not go, to see things he would never 
see, to come back and tell him how things actually were. And her reports 
were formed as words

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in his speeches that touched little people all across America who could 
not imagine that the President of the United States knew how they lived 
and cared about them. She was his conscience and our Nation's 
conscience.
    Franklin Roosevelt's mission was to change America to preserve its 
ancient virtues in the face of new and unprecedented challenges. That 
is, after all, America's mission in all times of change and difficulty. 
The depth and sweep of it was unprecedented, when FDR asked a shaken 
nation to put its confidence in him. But he had no doubt of the outcome.
    Listen to what he said in September 1932, shortly before he was 
elected for the first time. He proclaimed his faith: ``Faith in America, 
faith in our tradition of personal responsibility, faith in our 
institutions, faith in ourselves demanded we recognize the new terms of 
an old social contract. New conditions imposed new requirements upon 
government and upon those who conduct government.'' That was his faith. 
He lived it, and we are here as a result.
    With that faith, he forged a strong and unapologetic Government, 
determined to tame the savage cycles of boom and bust, able to meet the 
national challenges too big for families and individuals to meet on 
their own. And when he restored dignity to old age, when he helped 
millions to keep their farms or own their homes, when he provided the 
simple opportunity to go to work in the morning to millions, he was 
proving that the American dream was not a distant glimmer but something 
every American could grasp. And then that faith of his infused all of 
his countrymen.
    With that faith, he inspired millions of ordinary Americans to take 
responsibility for one another, doing their part, in his words, through 
the National Recovery Administration, reclaiming nature through the 
Civilian Conservation Corps, gathering scrap, giving up nylons, and 
eventually storming the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa and Anzio.
    With that faith, he committed our Nation to lead the world, first as 
the arsenal of democracy and then at the head of the great crusade to 
free the world from tyranny. Before the war began, the four freedoms set 
the foundation for the future and made it clear to the whole world that 
America's goal was not domination, but a dominion of freedom in a world 
at peace.
    With that faith, as the war neared an end he would never see, he 
traced the very architecture of our future, from the GI bill to the 
United Nations. Faith in the extraordinary potential of ordinary people 
sparked not only our victory over war, depression, and doubt, but it 
began the opening of doors and the raising of sights for the 
dispossessed in America that has continued down to the present day.
    It was that faith in his own extraordinary potential that enabled 
him to guide his country from a wheelchair. And from that wheelchair and 
a few halting steps, leaning on his son's arms or those of trusted 
aides, he lifted a great people back to their feet and set America to 
march again toward its destiny.
    He said over and over again in different ways that we had only to 
fear fear itself. We did not have to be afraid of pain or adversity or 
failure, for all those could be overcome. He knew that, of course, 
because that is exactly what he did. And with his faith and the power of 
this example, we did conquer them all, depression, war, and doubt.
    Now we see that faith again alive in America. We are grateful beyond 
measure for our own unprecedented prosperity. But we must remember the 
source of that faith. And again, let me say to Senator Inouye and 
others, by showing President Roosevelt as he was, we show the world that 
we have faith that in America you are measured for what you are and what 
you have achieved, not for what you have lost. And we encourage all who 
face their difficulties and overcome them not to give in to fear but to 
believe in their possibilities.
    And now, again, we need the faith of Franklin Roosevelt in an 
entirely different time, but still no ordinary time, for in this time, 
new livelihoods demand new skills. We have to fight against the enormous 
destructive influences that still grip the lives of too many of our 
young people. We must struggle to make our rich racial, ethnic, and 
religious diversity a source of strength and unity when such differences 
are the undoing of millions and millions around the world. And we must 
fight against that nagging old doubt.
    It is a strange irony of our time that here, at the moment of our 
greatest prosperity and progress in so many years--in 1932, one in 4 
Americans was out of work; this morning we learned that fewer than one 
in 20 Americans are out of work for the first time in more than 2 
decades. And at this time, where the pinnacle that Roosevelt hoped 
America would achieve in

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our influence and power has come to pass, we still, strangely, fight 
battles with doubts, doubts that he would treat with great impatience 
and disdain, doubts that lead some to urge us to pull back from the 
world at the very first time since Roosevelt's time when we actually can 
realize his vision of world peace and world prosperity and the dominance 
of the ideals for which he gave his life.
    Let us honor his vision not only with this memorial today but by 
acting in the way he would tell us to act if he were standing here 
giving this speech, on his braces, looking at us and smiling at us and 
telling us we know what we have to do. We are Americans. We must have 
faith, we must not be afraid, and we must lead.
    The great legacy of Roosevelt is a vision and a challenge--not a set 
of specific programs but a set of commitments--the duty we owe to 
ourselves, to one another, to our beloved Nation, and increasingly, to 
our fellow travelers on this small planet.
    Now we are surrounded by the monuments to the leaders who built our 
democracy: Washington, who launched our great experiment and created our 
Republic; Jefferson, who enshrined forever our creed that it is self-
evident that we are all created equal, with unalienable rights to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; Lincoln, who gave his life to 
preserve Mr. Washington's Republic and to make real Mr. Jefferson's 
words; and now, Franklin Roosevelt, who saved freedom from tyranny, who 
restored our Republic, who defined Mr. Jefferson's creed to include 
freedom from want and fear. Today, before the pantheon of our democracy, 
let us resolve to honor them all by shepherding their legacy into a new 
century, into a new millennium.
    Our mission is to prepare America for the time to come, to write a 
new chapter of our history, inspired always by the greatest source of 
hope in our history. Thomas Jefferson wrote the words, but Franklin 
Roosevelt lived them out every day. Today I ask you to remember what he 
was writing at Warm Springs when he died, that last speech: ``The only 
limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us 
move forward with strong and active faith.''
    My fellow Americans, every time you think of Franklin Roosevelt, put 
aside your doubts, become more American, become more like him, be 
infused with his strong and active faith.
    God bless you, God bless America, and may God always bless the 
memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Note: The President spoke at 10:50 a.m. at the memorial. In his remarks, 
he referred to David B. Roosevelt, cochair, FDR Memorial Capital 
Campaign; and Princess Margriet of The Netherlands, President 
Roosevelt's goddaughter.